Not many people in the world can say that something they built is orbiting Mars—especially not college students. Soon, a cross-disciplinary team of about 35 NAU students—most studying planetary science, astronomy, mechanical engineering or electrical engineering—led by faculty members at NAU will be able to claim that accomplishment. The team’s VISIONS (VISible and Infrared ObservatioN System) camera is… Read more
A Flagstaff team made up of NAU and Flagstaff-based engineers, scientists and fire professionals has been selected to advance to the next stage of the Space-based Detection and Intelligence Track of the XPRIZE Wildfire competition.
The team proposes to put a ‘constellation’ of 90 small satellites into Earth orbit equipped with heat-seeking sensors built at Northern Arizona University. The network would continuously monitor wildfire-prone areas in parts of the Southwest including Flagstaff and the Pacific Northwest, Canada, and Alaska.
“Citizen scientists perform a great service in identifying potential active asteroids in archival data, but to further study all of the active asteroids discovered in this project, we spent many nights observing them with ground-based telescopes to better understand their behavior,” said Chad Trujillo, NASA principal investigator and NAU department of astronomy and planetary sciences associate professor.
Decades of research on tiny life in one of the most inhospitable places can reveal the planet’s biggest changes.